Mystery
by Nada Minnun
Summary: You're a Mystery, she decided seriously. A good mystery. Mystery of Niora Hospital...we've quested for her, gotten items from her, but what is her story? Spoilers for the Mystery quest.


Disclaimer: MapleStory is the sole property of Wizet. I do not own it or any part of it (oh, I wish).

Just a quick idea…

And if you do see a kind of subtext to this fic, I was doing an English assessment on an issue that we want to discuss at the moment, so blame it on that.

Also, the magician girl is not based off me, but rather off my character. I do not behave like that.

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"_You'll be beautiful. I promise."_

That's what he said, the first day we talked about the operation. Dr Niora, who promised me beauty. Dr Niora, who promised me a place in the world. Dr Niora, my saviour. I have been waiting forever and a day to get these bandages removed, and now finally the time has come. I'm surprised the Doctor hasn't arrived himself, but I suppose he has other patients, not just me. Still. I wish he would have come personally. I was one of his very first patients when he advertised his 'revolutionary technique'. _I_ was one of the few who would help him propel himself to greatness. I wonder where he is now?

Slowly, awaiting the shock I will receive…I'm unwinding the bandages. One line of cloth at a time, falling away. These bandages which have held me chained since the day I woke up can come off. One round and I'm imagining myself, walking down the main street of Kerning and feeling all the eyes on me, me, me for once. Another round, and I see myself snubbing at the beautiful fairies of Ellinia, who always mocked me for my plain face. No, not being ugly wasn't enough, you had to be _beautiful._ Another round, and I see myself in my mind's eye, on the ship to Orbis, accompanied by a handsome Sniper, hand in hand. One more, and I am smiling at the Assassin who spurned me, wondering at the girl I have become, wondering what he has lost. The last piece falls, and I open my eyes.

What is this? The hospital is quiet, unusually so, and I sit up in bed. Blankets fall off me, making me shudder as my skin feels the sharp bite of a cold Kerning morning. The glass has been smashed. Everywhere. No mirrors for me to see my face in, no place for me to find my new, beautiful self. I slip out of bed and wander, stricken, amongst the corridors. It is icy cold to me. Where are the nurses? The patients? Where is the doctor, the doctor who promised me everything? I wander like a lost soul, aimlessly, down the stairs to the front foyer, and sit down there. The IV drip swings lazily beside me, the squeaking sound of my own desperation. Why is this place empty? What has happened in the time I have been waiting?

I hear the crunch of the door as it opens and I stand, as a young magician enters. No, who am I calling young? She looks sixteen. As old as I am. I feel much older, though. I feel as though I slept under the anaesthetic forever.

"Hi," she says, looking at me. Hope surges and a thought hits me; maybe this mage can help me find my beautiful self.

"Hello," I say quietly, standing up as my body shivers with cold. _Why is it so cold here? _I tell her my story. I ask her to help me, and she agrees. I can hear my voice asking for the mirror glass, I can hear myself telling her what to do.

"I hear wild boars carry some."

"I can do that!" She grins and whips off a two-fingered salute that makes me smile despite the pain that lances through my face. What has _happened _to me? What has happened?

"Thank you," I whisper, as the door whines shut after her, and she leaves, taking the warmth and light of the world outside with her.

Outside, that's a thought. I pad to the door and attempt to push it open; it doesn't budge. Have my muscles atrophied that badly since I first came in? I should at least be able to push open a _door_! I shove harder. Harder. It doesn't work and I drop to the floor, my whole body throbbing in pain, back to the door, IV tube jerking and swinging. I desperately want to rip it out and throw it, but I need it right now. It is the only thing I can cling to that seems real.

Time passes. I have no idea what time it is, what day it is, save for how the light falls through the high broken windows of Niora Clinic. When it is dark, at night, it gets even colder. I don't care about the cold any more, though. All I want is something to allay my growing suspicions, and I want it soon. My hand, clinging to the rig of the IV pack which seems to never run out, seems to have an ethereal sheen and I try not to think that it glows faintly in the waning of the light. I try, but try as I might, I can't help myself. I know that it is. And it is eternally cold.

I have no idea how many days have gone by, but the magician girl is back with the mirror glass, sweeping in with warm sunset light and pack in hand, face all satisfaction and confidence.

"Man, wild boars are savage," she comments, tipping the glass out onto the dusty floor before me. "You know what despair is? Despair is going into a herd of wild boar, riling them all up, then realising you haven't got a single potion on you." I look up at her, unable to suppress a half-pitying smile.

"Are you all right?" My hands swim aimlessly above the glass. She bends down, and we sort the pieces together.

"Yeah, kind of. I was knocked unconscious by the flying hooves, but I woke up later more or less intact…well, kinda bruised, but nothing a bit of rest couldn't fix." The magician laughs, and I smile again. There is a _clink_ and I look down at the glass.

At first I think there is something wrong. The glass reflects everything; the magician's face, the high ceiling, the rafters and windows and beams of light, even my IV drip. Everything, except me.

_No_! Panicked, I lean in closer and squint, hoping against all hope for anything that is _not_ what I am seeing. But no matter how I turn or which way I face or how I care to look at it, the fact is thus: I cannot see myself in the mirror. I am a ghost, a shade, a being of the insubstantial and no longer of the real world she belongs to. She looks up at me, eyes wide and amazed.

"Please," I can hear the words tumbling out of my mouth, borne by desperation and fear. "Can you get me Charms of the Undead? A hundred of them? I…" She looks at me, understanding, and leaves quickly. Perhaps some of that speed is granted by fear of the spirit world…that I am now a part of.

Despairing, I walk _(float)_ up to the room I was ensconced in so long. In all that time, how could I not have noticed?

No. I noticed. I just never acknowledged it. It was there, at the back of my mind; telling me _you don't belong here any more_, but I never listened. It explains everything, of course. The cold. The glow. The abandonment.

I remember Niora Hospital then. Bright and bustling and new, busy with all sorts of people, patients and nurses and happy family members marvelling at the lovely people their loved ones have become. My family wasn't there. They never were. The only one who had ever been there at any one time was my father. He was the one who bought me my dagger and showed me out into the world, but he wasn't the one who put that dream of beauty into my head. My mother was. She and all my sisters. They were all beautiful. Silver tresses immaculately done, perfectly shaped face, unblemished skin, voices like nightingales, willow arms and legs. They were perfect. I was nothing next to them. The ugly duckling of the crowd. I learned to hate walking down the main street of Kerning behind them; I would slouch behind in jeans and t-shirt with dagger at my side while _they_ would walk down in pretty chipao dresses and blow kisses at the drooling men. Yes, I was the fighter of the family. The earner. Third child of five daughters, and the only one to take after her father in plain looks and tomboy nature.

I ran away after a while. I couldn't tolerate it. First the lack of attention, then the taunts for not being beautiful, cumulating in how I was obviously too lacklustre to attract the attentions of anyone. So I ran from those taunts that stabbed my heart with silvery laughter, I ran from the cruelty and materialism and shallowness of it all and became…myself. I didn't know who I was, but I knew that I was free from that silver world of reflected beauty and sad women. Until I returned to Kerning and met Niora.

Then it all came back, how I wanted to be beautiful and no longer plain. And he promised everything; the admiration, the respect, the men, the glory. And I paid him, shelled out all those hard earned mesos I had saved and scraped for new armour, and gave them to him willingly.

The fan above creaks as it blows, throwing light patterns everywhere. I shiver with cold and curl into a ball and close my eyes, to drift off into dreams of knives and bandages, blood and IV drips, and empty mirrors anywhere I look.

"Hey?" Someone is shaking my shoulder; I sigh and let go of the dream. It's the young mage, waving a sheaf of Charms in my face. I sneeze, and the Charms flutter all over the floor; we spend a minute chasing them before they are all placed in a neat heap before me. In my heart I know it will be no use, but I try anyway, picking them up and waving them back and forth. Nothing happens. I knew it wouldn't, but all the same it hurts to see it.

"Could I be alone for a minute, please?" My voice is choked and low in my throat; the young mage hesitantly complies, casting backwards glances at me until she shuts the door of the clinic. I don't feel so alone, knowing she is just outside, but nonetheless I know I am alone.

I glance at the Charms and pick them up; she shouldn't be unrewarded for her efforts. Painstakingly, using the powers of the Charms themselves, I soon have a ragged cloak lying on the ground before me. The temptation to try it on and attempt escape is huge, but I know somehow what the result will be. It will bring me only pain and I will be losing myself in lies. Slowly, I stand, with the IV rig as a crutch, and wander the clinic aimlessly; where is Niora now, I wonder?

My life is over, and I look up to the fading rays of the sun. Filtered through the fan they circle on the floor, a pattern of rotating light boxes all across the floor, and I look at them. Then I look at myself; no shadow, glowing faintly silver in waning light, and smile. The magician girl comes back in, and I hand her the cape.

"This is a cape I made with the Charms. Hope it does you some good in your adventuring," I say as she fastens it slowly about her shoulders.

"Thanks," she says, and looks at me. Straight at me, at the foolish girl who threw away her life for a dream, at the ghost who is now free from everything she ever was. "What about you?"

"What _about_ me?" I ask, startled. "I…don't know. Where am I going to go from here? What am I doing? I don't know…I can't decide…but I think I'm happy now." Her grin as she replies is devilish and lighthearted, which makes me laugh.

"Well, you could always set up a haunted house…"

"You know, that's an idea," I say thoughtfully. "There've always been some people I wanted to haunt…" We both laugh and the hospital doesn't seem so dark, despite the fact that it's nearly night time. When the laughter fades, we both look at each other, fascinated by one another. She is light and happiness and joy; I am a lost hope and quiet darkness and a failed attempt to be something I was not.

"What's your name?" she asks me and I find I cannot remember. Everything I remember about my past…save this…and it is the most important of all.

"Why don't you give me one?" I reply, chancing a smile. She pauses and looks thoughtful for a moment, and I expect her to give me some cheerful name that is everything I am not. She surprises me with her choice.

"Mystery," she decides seriously. "You're a Mystery. A good mystery."

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If you loved it, hated it, think I should be thrown into a pack of Bains for writing this fic, review me? ;;


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